


timing

by thisstableground



Series: palette [1]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Autistic Character, Character Study, Gen, mild violence, ultimate dad friend herc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-10
Updated: 2017-04-10
Packaged: 2018-10-17 09:00:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10590732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisstableground/pseuds/thisstableground
Summary: Hamilton’s so young. Mulligan feels like a dick thinking it, because he’s hardly got that many years on him and he’s pretty sure the kid can handle himself in his own suicidally upfront way. It’s just jarring, the sophistication of even his drunken words the other night contrasting against his petulant face right now, against the way he swings his legs while he sits on Mulligan’s kitchen counter.[Alexander has a new landlord, Mulligan has a new headstrong fool to keep in check.][Part of series, can be read alone. Set before all the others, just after the squad meets Alex.]





	

**Author's Note:**

> [a/n: technically part of my Look How Much I Love Autistic Alex 'verse, but this installment is far more Look How Much I Love Mulligan. he deserves it.]

The key to being a good spy is knowing which questions to ask, and when. Trying to wring everything out of someone at once just makes them cagey: it’s better to slip in past their defences without them even noticing.  
  
For this reason, Mulligan does not ask the following when he opens the door one evening to find a scowling but sheepish Hamilton:  
  
1\. Do you know how late it is?  
2\. How do you know where I live?  
3\. Why is your face bleeding?  
  
Instead, he looks at the first hints of a bruise blooming around a thin, shallow cut and says, “Guy was wearing a ring, I see?”  
  
Hamilton, clearly poised to fight some kind of case, looks caught off guard. “Uh, yes.”  
  
“Hm. Alright, come through. Kitchen, straight ahead, I was cleaning up when you rang so there’s more light in there.” They shuffle through the door and Mulligan points at a clear section of the countertop. “Up. Let’s see the damage.”  
  
“It’s _fine_ ,” says Hamilton impatiently, but he jumps up onto the side anyway.

He’s so _young_. Mulligan feels like a dick thinking it, because he’s hardly got that many years on him and he’s pretty sure the kid can handle himself in his own suicidally upfront way. It’s just jarring, the sophistication of even his drunken words the other night contrasting against his petulant face right now, against the way he swings his legs while he sits on Mulligan’s kitchen counter. Like some parts of him grew up so fast that other bits got left behind in the rush.

“It’s not like I’ve not had worse, you know,” Hamilton says. “I just needed a place to gather my wits a while, and Laurens told me to come here if ever I needed it.”

 _Thanks, Laurens_ , Mulligan thinks, but it puts him a little more at ease. Laurens is a reckless little shit, but he’s got good judgement when it comes to who can be trusted. It was obvious he was starstruck the second Hamilton walked into their inn and started ranting, all of a week ago.  
  
“Your place not close by?”

“I, ah, wouldn’t say that I had a place. As such. Or at all.”  


The cut isn’t deep. Mulligan opens the cupboard where he stores his small wooden box of medical supplies anyway. People talk more when you look like you’re too busy to listen properly.  
  
“So, you’re staying with a friend?” he queries, holding up bottles and squinting at their labels with exaggerated focus.  
  
Alex laughs.“Ha, _right_.”  
  
Ouch. Mulligan’s not about to wander _that_ cliff edge. He uncaps a clear alcohol solution - too rough to drink, even for him, but good enough to wash off a cut - and takes his sweet time soaking a clean rag in it, the air heavy with the grain-scent and protracted silence till the latter gets too uncomfortable for Hamilton to deal with.  
  
“Inns are expensive!” Hamilton blurts out loudly. That did not take long at all. “Inns are expensive,” he repeats, quieter, slightly ashamed. “I’ve no family to stay with and no money for a room, but there’s always someone who needs an extra pair of hands to help with their children or a fresh set of eyes to look over their finances. And I’m not gonna kick up a fuss about sleeping in an armchair or on the floor…so, I’ve been getting by with services rendered.”  
  
Mulligan nods, tilts Hamilton’s face to the candlelight with a hand under his chin. Bleeding stopped already but he scrutinises for a few second longer than necessary before he meets Hamilton’s eyes: Hamilton stares stubbornly back, his jaw tight. A familiar mask of anxious, proud defiance, set across the face of every kid who grew up hungry. Mulligan wore it himself for some years.  
  
“And tonight?” he prompts, voice neutral.

Hamilton wrinkles his nose unhappily. “A misunderstanding. Turns out the kind of _services_ he was expecting were ones that I wasn’t willing to offer. It was fine,” he reassures hurriedly, when Mulligan pauses with the alcohol rag halfway to Hamilton’s face and shoots him an alarmed look. ‘I think he was under the impression I had picked up on the implied terms of his offer. Which I had most definitely not. But he was just, y’know, too close. Not aggressive.”  
  
“Really, now?” says Mulligan, wiping the rag pointedly across the cut. Hamilton hisses, then shrugs.

“Well, okay, but in fairness, I did punch him first. He startled me, is all. I overreacted.”  


“I dunno about that. Sounds like he was more than willing to get up in your space then punch you right back just ‘cause you acted on instinct. Might’ve been a good call. Don’t let anybody think you aren’t ready to keep yourself safe.”  
  
“Could be right,” Hamilton concedes, reluctant. “Still. Now I’ve nowhere to sleep.”

Christ, but this kid is six kinds of bad luck walking. “You can crash here.”

“I can’t pay you. In either sense of the term,” Hamilton says warily, leaning back a little. Not entirely naive, then. That’s a relief, even if it’s misplaced caution this time around.  
  
“Wasn’t asking. Maybe help keep the place tidy a bit, and I ain’t complaining if you wanna help sift through the customer paperwork for me, but no obligation. You need a place to stay, I got a place for you to stay, that’s all.”

Hamilton relaxes slightly but still looks suspicious. “Why are you offering this? You don’t even know me.”

“Because it don’t hurt me to help, kid,” Mulligan says, capping the alcohol bottle again and standing with a crack of his knees. “The army’ll be moving out to camp in a couple weeks anyway, and you’re hardly gonna take up much space. Besides, I’m invested in keeping you alive, Laurens has already grown attached. ”

Hamilton lights up like a candle. “Really? Did he say that? What did - uhm, I mean. Thanks. Thank you. Really.”  
  
“No problem,” says Mulligan.  
  
***

And really, it isn’t much of a problem. Outside of apprenticeship hours, there’s so much to do before they head out with the army, so Mulligan spends the next two weeks tying up a constant series of loose ends. Hamilton - he’s started thinking of him as Alex, or sometimes just as ‘kid’ - is helping, paperwork-wise. It’s been kinda nice having him around. He’s a pretty tidy guy, tries to keep his restless pacing to a minimum after hours, and finds it so impossible to be idle that even if he paid rent he’d probably be sorting through all of Mulligan’s poorly-organised paperwork just for something to do.

Alex is not, however, a quiet living companion. Got a nice voice on him and Mulligan can only assume it’s got that way through incessant practice, because Alex talks endlessly and aimlessly, picking up on a point of interest and thoroughly dissecting it while his hands and brain are working on entirely different spheres. It’s not exactly unpleasant. It’s just a lot.   
  
Today’s subject of interest: a mutual companion.  
  
“-but _Laurens_ says -”  
  
When the hell do the two of them find so much time to talk alone? They’ve only known each other a few weeks, but Alex has been on this track for hours, and looks nowhere close to running out of Laurens-related anecdotes and snippets of relayed wisdom. Which is worrying, now that Mulligan comes to think of it.  
  
“Laurens sure seems to say a lot of things to you,” says Mulligan with a slightly wicked grin. Alex flushes a little and subsides. “You want my advice, you’ll listen to maybe one in twenty of those and even that with a grain of salt. He'd fistfight a greek god if he thought they were looking at him funny.”  
  
“What’s that meant to mean? _I_ happen to think he’s got the right of things. Blunted edges won’t keep you safe in times like this. I mean, you even said it the other day, when I punched that guy who kicked me out.”  
  
Mulligan rolls his eyes. God save him from the overly defensive duo that Hamilton and Laurens are rapidly growing into. They’re too similar: it’s hard to explain Laurens’ flaws when Alex sees all those things as virtues.

“Kid, I know you think he hung the fuckin’ moon, and don’t get me wrong you’ll never meet a better friend than Laurens. He’s a little brother to me. But don’t you try and convince me that his way of headbutting every problem like a pissed-off billygoat is in any way the same thing as self-defence, or a good idea.”

Alex is too starry-eyed to see the point Mulligan is trying to make. “Laurens says that -“  
  
“Oh, I _know_ what Laurens says. _I may not live to see our glory_? If he keeps that attitude up he’s gonna prove himself right and the same applies to you. Now, you’re both passionate, you’re both brilliant, I can see that. Thing you need to remember is that if all the brilliant ones get killed in pointless barfights tomorrow, then it’s gonna be a bunch of redcoat kids telling our stories, and you can be damn sure none of us will be the hero in that case.”  
  
It’s probably the most Mulligan has said to Alex in one go, and usually he’d keep that kind of thing to himself, but this kid’ll find himself on the end of a bullet or a bayonet in pretty short order if someone doesn’t bring him down from the clouds a little.  
  
Alex is momentarily startled - he rallies fast, though. “So what, we just step back and do nothing? Sounds like something Burr would say.”  
  
“Well, Burr ain’t always wrong. I get you’ve had it rough, kid, and I admire you for getting tough about it, but-“  
  
“But the fact _is_ that nobody’s gonna look after you but you,” Alex interrupts.

Christ, that’s sad.

“It’s not that simple. Protect yourself, yeah, but that doesn't mean you have to join every fight.”

“Somebody has to,” Alex says, quietly, fiercely.

“It doesn't have to be you every time,” says Mulligan. “It doesn’t have to be a fight every time.”

Alex just turns back to his paperwork, disbelief writ clear across his face.  
  
***

The thing is, Mulligan is musing a few days later as he cooks breakfast for him and his new sort-of tenant, the thing is that Alex and Laurens, they're birds of a feather. Lafayette’s got a fire of his own that sent him crackling off like gunpowder to come join somebody else’s war on the other side of the sea, but he’s not a fighter in the same way. Mulligan’s seen him laughing with a mouthful of blood more times than he’d like, but Lafayette’s an idealist, an optimist. He fights because he wants the world to be right and he’s willing to deal with the mess that comes along the way.

Laurens and Alex, they fight for their beliefs too, but they’d also just as easily knock a guy’s teeth out or deliberately provoke him to try the same on them just to show the world that they can.  


Maybe he’s got the same kind of problem but mirror-image flipped. The other two are small in stature, still so young and lacking the solidity of adulthood. Alex is a poor immigrant bastard with a million things to prove. And Laurens - well. Laurens has never said as much to him, but Mulligan knows a bit about reading between the lines and he’s never seen Laurens so much as glance at a pretty serving-girl. Not that it bothers him, really, Laurens is a good kid anyway and there's far worse things he could be. But he knows how the world works. The two of them would be at the mercy of wolves, except they apparently decided _fuck that_ and turned predator so nobody could make them prey.

Mulligan is a big guy, has always been a big guy. Mulligan knows if he jumped into fights as often as those two then he’d win every one, because he used to do that back when he was more like Laurens and thought the best way to make an impact on the world was with a fist. No arrogance, but when Mulligan does weigh in, he weighs in hard and ruthless.

He doesn’t want to be that guy all the time. He doesn’t want to be the guy who people are scared to meet in a dark alley. That doesn't mean he’s soft.

“I ever tell you about when I decided to stop getting into so many fights?”

Alex looks up from the kitchen table where he’s sat with his letters. “No?”  
  
“This was way back when I first started my apprenticeship, probably the first time I’d been left to man the store on my own while the owner ran some errands. Girl ducks in all flustered-looking. Couldn’t have been older than sixteen, definitely couldn’t afford to buy what we were selling, and she just looked nervous as all hell. Can you grab a couple plates for me?”  
  
For once, Alex says nothing as he brings the plates over, apparently intrigued enough to stop talking.  
  
“I didn’t want to freak her out more by asking what her game was, so I just ran with the usual spiel. _How can I help you today, miss_ , offered her a cup of tea and everything. She calms down a bit, pretends like she’s just looking to buy something for her ma, and I say _I know you aren’t here to buy anything from me._ There’s water in the kettle, if you put it on to boil now we can have coffee after food, by the way.”

Alex ducks around him to reach for the heavy copper kettle. “What did she say?”  
  
“She gets real apologetic, says she didn’t mean to come in and waste my time but it’s just that there were these two guys who’d been yelling all kinds of things at her right the way down the street, and she was worried they were gonna follow her home and was hoping they’d leave if she spent long enough in the store. Tiny little waif of a girl, wouldn’t be able to fight one guy, never mind two.”

“So what happened?” Alex sits at the table, looking at him curiously, obviously not sure where he’s going with this.  
  
“So I walked her home, obviously. You think those assholes are gonna fuck with this?” He gestures at his upper body and Alex makes a noise of agreement like, _who would?._ “I know their game. They ain’t picking on her ‘cause she’s pretty, though she was. They’re pickin’ on her ‘cause she’s alone and barely comes up to their chest and can’t do shit about it. Thats how people like that work. Pack animals. Separate the herd and pick off the ones who can’t run as fast.”

Alex is nodding. Of course you know that, Mulligan thinks. You’re the runt of the litter. You’ve learnt to move quick else otherwise you’d have been eaten alive a thousand times over by now.

“And I’ve seen people look at me like that’s my way too,” Mulligan continues. “Everyone sees what they expect to see: man who looks like that must always be ready to start some shit kinda thing, when really he’s not looking for anything at all. Ladies clutching their purses a little tighter to them like he’s gonna try and take it away. People thinking he’s dumb muscle. Whatever, I’m fine with it,” he stalls Alex’s incoming interjection before it can happen, shovelling food from pan to plate. “Can’t stop people from thinking of me as a certain kind of person. Can even use it to my advantage, if needs be. But that don't mean I have to _be_ that kind of person. For that one girl, when I was walking with her she wasn’t looking at me and thinking ‘look at his arms, he could beat the shit out of me’. And I thought, if someone looks at me and is like, ‘damn, that dude’s built, he could keep me safe’ even one time out of a hundred, that’s important. That’s not _always_ been who I am, maybe, but it's who I wanted to be, so I made sure to do my best to become that. There’s a lot of ways to do what’s right.”

He puts the plates on the table, sitting down opposite Alex and pushing his food a little closer to him. “But you know what?”

“What?”

“If those guys had come after that girl while I was around to see it…I would’ve fuckin’ killed ‘em.”He picks up his fork. “People can be more than one thing at a time, y’know?”

Alex looks contemplative.

***

Mulligan lets the topic lie after that. He’s not gonna go round trying to force any big epiphanies. Trying to alter Hamilton’s attitude if he’s not willing to pick up what you’re putting down is like trying to argue with the wind. Change’ll happen when it happens, if ever it does. If not, Mulligan will just have to keep his eyes open and hope nobody lands themselves in trouble he can't pull them out of.

It pays off a week later at the inn. Laurens isn’t there, but Mulligan, Alex and Lafayette all came for a drink, revelling in the nervous anticipation that’s been hanging around for the past few days. It’s just before they all head out for camp, and there’s soldiers out in flocks, discussing plans and enjoying their last relaxed moments before the war begins in earnest. 

A little too relaxed, in some cases. There’s a voice from the bar close by their table, with all of Alex’s loudmouth bluster but none of his charm. Lee, or something, if Mulligan’s remembering him right. He’s cussing out the decisions of everyone from Washington downward, clearly under the impression he’d do a better job of running the revolution single-handed. He’s not addressing anyone in their group, but that’s no barrier to Alexander Hamilton when he’s got an opinion to be shared.

“We’ve not even got on the field proper yet, how on _earth_ would you know what sort of commander Washington is?” Hamilton demands loudly, twisting in his seat to glare at Lee. “Youthful mistakes aside, I’ve heard only good things from this stretch of the campaign. The kind of intelligent, fair leader those who fight for our country should unite under, instead of making all kinds of grandiose and inherently unprovable statements about what you’d be doing differently.”  
  
Lee slowly fixes Alex with a raised eyebrow and a look of patronising amusement. “Hamilton, isn’t it? I’ve heard about you. Scrappy little terrier, won’t let go of anything once he gets hold of it, that’s what I’m told. Well, Hamilton, it’s obvious to anyone important that Washington’s leadership is on it’s last legs. I’m afraid blind lapdog loyalty isn’t going to be enough to advance your career.”

Dog’s a bad comparison, thinks Mulligan. All arched and insulted like this Alex looks pretty much like an outraged cat. If he had fur it’d be stood on end. He slams his hands down on the table, clearly about to escalate but then, unthinkably, he pauses and looks questioningly at Mulligan instead.

Now _that’s_ unexpected. Mulligan makes a _nah, wouldn’t bother_ kind of face. Jackass ain’t worth the breath, or the busted knuckles. Amazingly, Alex backs off.

Lafayette looks between the two of them, baffled. “What just happened there?”

“Self-restraint just happened there. I’m impressed,” he tells Alex, holding his fist out respectfully. Alex bumps knuckles with him, looking pleased.

Lee, on the other hand, is less impressed. “So much for terrier. Though, ha, perhaps not too dissimilar to the _female_ of the species,” he sweeps his gaze disdainfully over Mulligan and Lafayette. “I can see you have a type. Do they keep you well?”

Oh, this guy is a piece of fucking _work._ Lafayette looks confused enough that he probably missed the nuance but definitely picked up on the tone. If not that, it’s hard to miss the impact the comment had on Alex, who has gone pale with fury, knuckles white on shaking hands.  


“’Scuse me a minute,’ says Mulligan, before shit has time to go down. He stands, _very_ calmly crossing to where Lee is leaning insouciant against the bar and delivers him one solid lowercut right to the stomach. Lee goes down with a wheeze and stays down. Mulligan casually turns back to their table, where Alex is gaping in shock and Lafayette has been overtaken by a fit of giggles.

“Holy shit,” squeaks Alex. Lee is heaving on the ground behind them. “Did you just punch him out? For insulting me? Holy shit!”

“Ah, and another fan is born,” says Lafayette, rueful. “This is the way he charmed Laurens, too. When will _I_ have a small friend to shower me in hero-worship, hm?”  


“Fuck off, Laf,” says Alex, but his voice is still a little high-pitched, and he’s staring at Mulligan with big, shining eyes.

“Gotta pick your moments, kid,’ says Mulligan, sipping his beer. “I’m pretty good at that.”

**Author's Note:**

> [a/n: come hang with me at [thisstableground](https://thisstableground.tumblr.com/) on tumblr where i'm currently going through the fandom equivalent of a midlife crisis and obsessing over Do No Harm.]


End file.
